Warm Friends on Cold Nights

Damn, he's cute.

He had been coming in to the Broad Street Cantina for the last six months or so, every Monday, quarter-to-noon like clockwork. He was tall and trim with a shy smile, soft-looking hair, and steely eyes full of confidence that I just wanted to get lost in. All summer he'd been clean shaven, but in the fall he'd grown out a neatly groomed beard. He dressed well, in khakis, polished shoes that matched his belts, loose neckties, and shirts with the sleeves usually rolled to his biceps. Always punctual, and always polite.

Hannah girl, if you have a 'type', he checks all the boxes.

God, I wish I had an excuse to ask him his name. In my head, I just called him "Monday Guy."

He pushed the door closed against the bitter January wind that followed him in, pulled off a knit watch cap, and stuffed it in a coat pocket. His hair was disheveled, but he combed his fingers through it and with one pass it all fell back in line.

"Hi!" I blurted, before he could speak. "The table by the window is open, if you'd like."

In truth nearly every table and booth was open, but the table by the window was the only one I could see from my hostess stand and close enough that he might talk to me.

Monday Guy looked over at the small table by the window, then turned back to me with that smile. "Thanks, but have you got room at the bar?"

He knew I did. He could see the row of empty bar stools lined up behind me. He always sat at the bar. I swallowed my disappointment and smiled. "Sure. Help yourself."

As he passed, I turned to watch him walk between the empty booths and barstools up to his usual spot half way down. I had to make a conscious effort not to sigh out loud as I watched him go. His heavy coat diminished the view somewhat, but he pulled off the coat, said hello to Shelby, the bartender, and took his seat.

I turned back to the door. I didn't want to watch Monday Guy flirt with Shelby. Guys all flirt with Shelby. Why wouldn't they? She has flowing honey-blonde hair dye, piercing blue contact lenses, a golden spray tan, and the best tits money can buy. Her personality is every bit as genuine. God, I hate her.

No, I shouldn't be such a bitch.

Shelby works three bartending jobs and sends most of her paycheck home to her mom who cares for Shelby's aging grandparents. She supports them all from her tips. Looking the way she does is just an investment.

Plus, she's technically my best friend—which probably says a lot about the disgraceful state of my social life. But knowing she was behind the bar in her tight, baby-doll T-shirt and tighter blue jeans, I felt very frumpy bundled up in my heavy coat against the cold air coming through the front door.

I could hear them chatting behind me, but I couldn't make out what they were saying. Probably best. Monday Guy's arrival signaled the start of the lunch-rush and more patrons were coming in.

I'd seat guests at tables knowing we'd have to walk past him and I'd steal glances hoping to catch his eye. But Monday Guy's attention was always on his phone, or on the TV behind the bar... or on Shelby. Each time I'd return to the hostess stand hoping next time he'd notice me.

A tap on my shoulder and I turned to see Shelby. "Your boyfriend's order is up any second!" she whispered conspiratorially. "Go grab it before a runner gets it. I'll cover for you," she winked.

"I don't... my what?" I stammered. I hadn't told her about Monday Guy.

"Jesus Hannah, you are not subtle when you have a crush. Now go talk to him! Go!"

I was absolutely mortified. Suddenly I was broiling in my heavy coat. Was I really that transparent? Did he know? I turned and started walking towards the kitchen in a humiliated daze.

There was only one order up on the counter, a plate of three tacos. No surprise there—we're famous for our à la carte taco menu. Voted best in the city, three years in a row. It says so right on the front of my podium.

"You can do this, Hannah," I breathed to myself. "Just be a waitress and flirt with your customer. That's all. You can do this."

Monday Guy had a pint of dark beer in front of him and his cell phone in his hand though he was ignoring it at the moment, looking up at the TV instead. I walked up beside him, hoping my face wasn't too flushed.

Deep breath.

"Here you go," I smiled nervously, sliding the plate in front of him. "You've got the uh, grilled peppers—very healthy; the peri-peri chicken and slaw—my personal favorite; and our taco of the week—um, Korean pulled pork with kimchi."

"Thanks!" he replied smiling before doing a double-take, looking from me, back to the hostess stand, and back to me again. He recognized me!... Oh God, I'm a twelve-year-old girl.

"We're, uh... a little short-handed today," I responded to his quizzical look. "Is there anything else I can get for you?" I asked hopefully.

"No, they all look great, thanks... I think I'm in good shape here."

"Well, just let me know... You enjoy that, now."

'You enjoy that, now'? Hannah girl, what is wrong with you? I cringed as I turned my back. I finally had a chance to say more than three words to Monday Guy, and the best I could do is 'You enjoy that, now'?

Fuck... I'm still wearing my coat.

I returned to the hostess podium just in time to take over from Shelby as two more customers came in from the cold. I gave her a weak smile that I hoped conveyed gratitude, and she winked at me encouragingly.

Monday Guy finished his lunch just as we started to get really busy. Still, I managed to wave and call out "See you next week?" as he headed out the door.

He grinned and called back "Count on it!"

And now he's just a fantasy for the next seven days. I did my best to put him out of my head and stayed busy for the rest of my shift.

"Come out with me tonight," Shelby urged as we clocked out together.

"Can't. I have class tomorrow."

"The semester has barely started," she whined. "Can't you just cut?"

It was the last semester of my JD. If everything went according to plan, I'd be taking the bar this summer.

"This isn't like English 101, Shel. I can't just skip class."

"Pleeease, Hannah..." she begged, "It's my first night off in weeks. I don't want to go out alone."

"You're just going to hook up with some guy and ditch me like you always do."

"Not if I look like a desperate loser with no friends who has to go out alone, I won't." I think she honestly thought that was a persuasive argument.

"I can't... I have too much to do." Including a date with a trashy romance novel and my best vibrator.

"...I'll tell you his name," she offered coyly.

"...What?"

"Your boyfriend. I looked at his credit card today... I - know - his - na - ame," she taunted.

"Really?! You're bribing me to go out drinking with you?"

"Am I?" she asked, innocently. "I thought I was blackmailing you."

"No, if you were blackmailing me, you'd have to threaten to discl- you know what, nevermind."

"So you'll come? Pleeeeease?"

Monday Guy's name... He'll come in next week, and I'll greet him by name and he'll smile and ask me mine. I'll tell him and he'll say 'That's a pretty name.' He'll sit at the table by the window. We'll chat. Then next week he'll come in and he'll say 'Hi Hannah'... Whoa, slow down, girl.

"'Til ten," I agreed, reluctantly. "You're buying."

"Midnight," Shelby countered.

"Fine," I conceded

"Damn! That was too easy. You've got it bad, sweetie."

"Shut up."

"I mean, I can see why... He is sooo dreamy."

"Shut up!" I shoved her and she laughed.

I had a couple of hours before I was supposed to meet Shelby at the Irish pub she worked at—the bar that gave her the best discount. So I went for a short run to clear my head. When I got home I got in the shower to wash off the aroma of stale Cal-Mex. If I was going out tonight, I didn't want to smell like work. The hot water felt so good on my bare shoulders after the frigid January cold, I stood there for a bit breathing in the steam and just letting the heat soak into my bones.

I really I shouldn't complain about going out with Shelby. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have any kind of social life at all. And if I'm honest with myself, I'm probably jealous. Shelby is always the center of attention, and she always seems to get whatever she wants.

It's not that I want the kind of attention Shelby gets... every prick with a clever line fawning all over her, trying to get into her pants. That's got to be exhausting, right? But she just sucks up all the air in the room. When you're standing next to Shelby, you might as well be invisible.

Maybe that's why she hangs out with me. Maybe she shines brighter with someone like me in her shadow. It's not that I'm ugly... At least I don't think I am. I've had boyfriends who didn't think so at the time.

It's just that Shelby gives off this vibe that says "I want to fuck you like an animal." If I have a vibe, it says something more like "I want to renew this library book."

Once the bathroom was full of steam and I could step out from under the hot water without shivering, I shampooed my hair and then let the conditioner sit in it while I lathered up with body wash and took care of my winter shaving for the week, because why not? Reaching up, I pulled the handheld sprayer off the wall to rinse off.

As I passed the shower head down my belly towards my thighs I realized just how badly I was going to miss my "me-time" tonight. I closed my eyes and let the jets of water pound against my mons for a moment.

"Oh yessss..." I moaned out loud, spreading my thighs, angling the spray up to drive against my swelling labia. I eased my lips apart and one of the water jets found my tender clit causing me to tremble at the sensation. I dropped to my knees in the tub, afraid of losing my balance.

Gasping at my own touch, my hand caressed my breast. The sprayer continued to buffet my pinkest flesh and the water coursed down my inner thighs in hot, feathery rivulets. My nipples had hardened and I pinched one between my nails, imagining Monday Guy's teeth playfully tugging. The sharp pain in contrast with the soft tickling made me tremble again.

"Yess... Mmmm, yes yes yessss... Ohhh!"

On my knees still, my hips rocked against the pummelling jets of water. In my fervid imagination, Monday Guy's hand moved up my chest to my neck, my jaw, my face. I sucked a finger into my mouth and wondered what the head of his cock would feel like pressed against the back of my throat.

I was quickly approaching the point of no return. The shower head was doing in minutes what I planned to spend languid hours on tonight. My heart was racing, and thoughts of Monday Guy swirled in my mind. His hand moved around behind my ear, to the back of my head. His fingers tangled and twisted in my hair as the sprayer battered my cunt.

"Oh God, yes!... Oh... Oh... Ahhh-hhhhaaaaaa..."

Just at that moment, when my brain seemed poised to explode in delirium, I seized a handful of hair and yanked back, hard. The searing pain in my scalp focused all of that wild, ecstatic energy into a bright white point of rapture. I heard a disembodied voice wail in elation and my body turned to quivering jelly as I collapsed back into the tub, panting.

The shower head slipped out of my slackened grip and wriggled around to spray up the shower curtain raining back down on my naked, twisted body. For a minute I just laid there on the cold acrylic, catching my breath, enjoying the warm pelting of the droplets, recovering from yet another in a long line of self-administered orgasms.

I felt even less like going out now than I did before. But I couldn't let Shelby hold Monday Guy's name over me. I needed to know. If for no other reason than to have a name to scream out the next time I had to take care of myself. So with half an hour left until I was supposed to meet her downtown, I bundled up for one of Shelby's famous bar crawls in the arctic January cold.

I walked into the pub a few minutes late and Shelby spotted me immediately.

"Hannah!" she called, waving from the bar, "Over here!"

Like I could have missed her.

There were only a dozen or so patrons, and Shelby stood out. She always stands out. The hem of her skirt didn't quite cover the tops of her stockings, and the thin material of her crop top made it pretty obvious that she wasn't immune to the cold. Her only nod to the weather was a short leather jacket she had hanging under the bar. Whore.

No! Be nice, Hannah girl.

"You made it!" she squealed as I pulled off my heavy coat. "I was afraid you were going to ditch me."

"Jesus Shel, you must be freezing."

She shrugged. "Oh God, no. The thermostat at my place is busted again. It must be like a hundred degrees in my apartment, and the landlord says he can't get to it for a couple of days. Now hurry up, you're already a drink behind."

On the bar in front of her were two martini glasses, one half empty, and two shot glasses, one completely empty. The shot was probably good Irish whiskey if I knew Shelby. A sip of the concoction in the martini wasn't familiar.

"Ok Shel, I give up. What are we drinking here?"

Shelby rattled off a list of ingredients that were mostly hard liquor, and gleefully concluded "It's called a 'Panty Dropper'!"

"Charming." It was going to be one of those nights.

I nursed my cocktail while Shelby flirted with the bartender, who she worked with (and occasionally went home with) on weekends, bitched about her landlord, and talked with me about my classes. She was always interested in my classes. No idea why. But after about twenty minutes—when no one had offered to buy us drinks—Shelby declared that the place was dead tonight and it was time to move on.

As she pulled on her jacket, she nodded towards the untouched shot of whiskey on the bar. "Drink up, sweetie."

"C'mon Shel, you know what a lightweight I am. I still have class in the morning."

"Fine," and she downed the shot herself.

The crowd at the sports bar across the street was too focused on Monday Night Football for Shelby's tastes and the dance floor at the club two blocks down was empty except for Shelby until she dragged me out to dance with her. One of the hotel bars was empty, but the other was crowded by lanyard-wearing convention goers with expense accounts—Shelby's favorite kind of hunting ground.

We both drank on their dime, and I was hopeful that Shelby would soon find someone she wanted to go upstairs with, freeing me to go home. But then a greasy guy in a bad suit bought Shelby a drink and made the mistake of asking "how much for an hour?"

We got kicked out when she punched him in the nose.

"Monday nights suck, Hannah," Shelby groused, as she staggered rapidly through the freezing January night towards our next destination. I was a little unsteady myself and Shelby and I leaned into each other both for warmth and stability.

"Wanna call it a night?" I offered.

"No... No dammit! This is my night off!... Gotta make the most of it."

"Where are we going? Is it much further?" I asked through chattering teeth, resigned to my fate.

"Nah... The bar 'n grill near my place... Just another block."

It was in a more residential neighborhood, just off the tourist and office track, and it was busy with late-dinner patrons. The bar was nearly full, so Shelby and I found an empty high-top off to one side where I sat with my back to the crowd. When the waitress came around, I ordered a bottle of cider which inspired Shelby to order an appletini.

"Soooo, how long have you been crushing on this guy of yours?" Shelby asked with a twinkle in her eye and a bit of a slur.

"...Is this really what you want to talk about, Shel?"

"Well, I have to shake some fun out of you somehow. You've been kind of a downer all night. I'll tell you what..." she leaned forward conspiratorially, "his name is Andrew."

"Andrew?" I had been expecting Shelby to hold Monday Guy's name over my head all night.

"Mm-Hm," she sat back with a smug expression and sipped her cocktail.

"He kinda looks like an 'Andrew,' doesn't he?"

"I dunno... I bet he goes by 'Drew'. It's more modern," Shelby speculated.

"No, he seems more conventional than that," I mused. "I bet they called him 'Andy' as a kid and he still goes by that... So what else do you know about him?"

"Oh, let me think... He works in an office near by..."

I gave her a look that I hoped said "Duh."

"Ok, fine, um... He likes camping... His dad used to be a bartender... He's a volunteer fireman... He likes hockey," she counted off facts on her fingers. "Which is the team with the penguins?"

"Pittsburgh, I think."

"Really? Ok, well that's his favorite team... Oh! He reads, like a lot. He's always telling me about the book he has loaded up on his phone."

"What kinds of books?"

"All different kinds. Like today it was about some spiritual scientist, and I think he read all the Game of Thrones books. There was one about economics not too long ago, and like back in October he was reading ghost stories."

As Shelby spoke the picture in my head evolved. I imagined crawling into a sleeping bag with Andy in the flickering glow of a campfire, wearing nothing but his Pittsburgh Penguins jersey, taking the book out of his hands and then climbing on top of him and riding his...

"Hannah? Do you want another one?" Shelby interrupted my reverie. I hadn't noticed the waitress approach from behind.

"Oh! Uh, sorry... No, I'm good for now, thanks."

"But," Shelby appended dramatically, "we'll also have three shots of Tequila."

"Really, Shel? Tequila?"

"You don't know it yet sweetie, but the night is just getting started," she explained cryptically, and wouldn't say any more about it until the waitress returned with the shots and lime wedges.

"These two are for us," Shelby told the waitress, taking two shot glasses off her tray. "Could you take the last one to that cute guy at the bar with his sleeves rolled up? Tell him it's from Hannah."

In my defense, I was a little buzzed by this point, so it took me a minute to realize what had just happened. I turned around to have a look at the latest object of Shelby's affection and was shocked to recognize Monday Guy sitting at the bar finishing off a sandwich.

The waitress set the tequila down in front of him and pointed towards our table. Monday Guy—Andrew—looked over at us with a bashful smile that turned to confusion and then dawning recognition.

Oh shit! He was looking right at me!

I whipped back around to see Shelby, all smiles, gesturing for him to come and join us. I could feel my face flush and my heart race as the temperature in the room shot up.

"It's him! It's Andrew! Oh my God, what is he doing here!?" I sputtered.

"Eating dinner, it looks like," Shelby shrugged.

"Did you know he was going to be here?"

"Nope. It's just your lucky night, I guess." I wished she wasn't enjoying this so much.

Some primitive fight-or-flight response kicked in and landed on "flight". Shelby must have seen it on my face because when I reached for my purse, her hand was already there.

"Hannah, calm down... deep breath..." she cajoled. "He's just a guy. He's just going to have a drink and we're going to talk, ok?"

"Ok... Ok... I can do that... What's he doing now?" I couldn't force myself to turn around and look.

"He's paying his tab, and then I think he's going to come join us."

"Ok, what... what do I say?" I still wanted to run.

"Well, you start with 'Hi'," Shelby coached, "and then you ask if you can sit on his face."

I don't know what my reaction was, but she almost fell off her stool laughing.

"I'm sorry... I'm sorry..." she apologized with tears in her eyes. "Oh sweetie, who wound you up so tight? You'll be fine. Just take a deep breath and be yourself... Here he comes."